Transferring dry bulk materials efficiently from one location to another in measured quantities is challenging. For efficiency purposes, it is desirable to transfer dry bulk materials rapidly, which may be promoted by fluidizing the materials using air (e.g. aerating) or another type of gas such as nitrogen, for example, prior to and during transfer. However, proper fluidization requires consideration of several factors. For example, recently fluidized materials do not benefit from adding more air or gas, and hence plant resources and time are wasted when such materials are unnecessarily fluidized. In addition, over-fluidization can degrade materials, for example, by introducing too much moisture. Further, the rapid transfer of materials can also create plugs in transfer lines between tanks, thereby reducing material transfer rates. Accordingly, proper fluidization to promote rapid material transfer requires customization based on the material type, how recently the material was fluidized, the characteristics of the transfer line, and other factors.
Transferring measured quantities of dry bulk materials is also challenging due to the difficulty in determining how much material is present within a transfer line at any point in time. In particular, dry bulk material may not be uniformly distributed within a fluidized stream, and therefore, it is difficult to predict exactly how much dry bulk material is contained within the transfer line. Therefore, to obtain a measured weight of dry bulk material within a scale tank, the inefficient process of “dribbling” is employed. Specifically, after most of the dry bulk material has been measured into the scale tank, incremental amounts of the material are moved from the storage tank into the transfer line and then purged into the scale tank. This process is repeated until the desired weight of material is achieved.
Thus, in practice, because several factors must be balanced to transfer dry bulk materials in measured quantities, a conventional cement plant is often manually operated by experienced personnel who transfer dry bulk materials based on intuition and judgment. However, optimum efficiency is still not achieved. Therefore, a need exists for automated control methods for efficiently transferring dry bulk materials in measured quantities.